On 20 August 2009 the Scottish Government launched a consultation on a "Zero Waste" plan for Scotland. The consultation is open for responses until 13 November 2009 and identifies key issues. These include establishing targets on prevention, reuse, recycling and composting, setting caps on energy from waste and landfill, improving waste data, better waste regulation, extending producer responsibility obligations, land-use planning for waste management and the possible implementation of further landfill bans.
"Zero Waste" is expressed as eliminating the unnecessary use of raw materials, waste prevention, re-using products where possible, recovering value from products at end of life, building sustainable design into products and general resource efficiency.
The consultation is cited as an opportunity to influence the longer-term direction of waste policy in Scotland and should be of interest to a broad spectrum of businesses. Given reduction of greenhouse gas targets in the Climate Change Act 2008 and Scotland's ambitious targets in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 (the "Act"), it is likely that the waste related policies being considered in this consultation will also be scrutinised carefully for the rest of the UK.
For information on key proposals in the plan, please click here
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The original publication date for this article was 22/09/2009.
